


Alas, Immanion

by wargoddess



Category: Wraeththu - Storm Constantine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Character of Color, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Orleans, after althaia.  A tale of misunderstandings understood and assumptions shattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

My name is Enra. You will have heard all the important tales by now, the great legends of the great hara: the Tigron Chronicles, the Book of Swift, the Redemption of the Uigenna, and of course the story of the Aghama himself. This story is not as great as those, but it could be, someday. I wish to tell you how it began.

In the days when men ruled, the Elders say our city was a decadent pleasure-haven, known for its raw beauty and seething majesty. In those times, the city was a rarity: a place of darkness and light, possessed of the sort of balance that few human cities had ever achieved. Even the humans marvelled at its glorious mesh of contradictions. Saints and vampires. Sweet liqueurs and deadly absinthe. Old world gentility and new world cruelty. It was a place where the poor prostituted their talents, their labor, their bodies, and their souls for the entertainment of the wealthy, and for the most part no one minded.

But the breakdown of the social order at the end of humanity's time caused all the pleasure-seekers to flee. In time no one remained except the most jaded and impoverished folk -- who'd been left behind, of course, to hopefully die. They didn't. Instead they swarmed out of the housing projects and the back wards to overrun the green avenues which had once been off-limits to them. For a time there were repeated fires, looting, and general anarchy. Among the gangs, there were wars over territory and access to scarce commodities such as drugs or women. The strong consumed the weak in many ways, not the least literally. In a way, I suppose it could be considered a kind of mass althaia. The city wallowed gibbering in its own filth like this for years.

Even althaia comes to an end eventually, however, and when it does the result is rebirth. Wraeththu was the elixir which fixed the city's metamorphosis. At first only the most despised denizens of the city were changed---those too cruel or independent for the gangs, too mad for the scavengers, too deviant for the whores. Hell's rejects. But the changing made them strong in all the ways that Wraeththu could be, and those first few grew and changed others and spread until half the city was us. That was when the humans, in a rare show of unity, tried to fight back. The city might have been a suppurating sore on the skin of the world, but it was _their_ sore, and they had no intention of giving it up to a bunch of self-fornicating freaks. But by then, of course, it had been far too late.

So from the rubble arose a new city, given an appropriately Wraeththu name: Noroliin, City of the Nighttime Revels. Althaia had refined its marvels, deepened its mysteries, and the result was nothing less than glorious. It was still a place where the pious could thrive among sinners, where divinity marched alongside carnality, where the old and beautiful mingled with the new and gaudy. The only difference was that these things were in everyone, now. It wasn't perfect, of course. The gangs had grown into tribes, and the tribes each ruled their wards of the city like fiefdoms of old, working together only insofar as it satisfied mutual interests. Some of the sicknesses of the old world lingered, albeit controlled. But out of the darkness and madness had grown my beautiful white-walled city, where the cobblestoned streets ran in crescent-shaped curves that mirrored the river which was our lifeblood. In alleyways off those streets hara could find any pleasure or terror---aruna, pelki, aphrodisiacs, poison, sweet delicacies, blood, magic. Here, forests of mausoleums stood among great, bearded oaks in testament to our ancestors, and here the annual Spring Revels danced down the streets to augur our future. Here there was balance once again. 

It was inevitable, I suppose, that other tribes which hadn't yet achieved our wholeness would covet it. The Hosannah were what had become of the people who'd fled the city during its changing. They'd travelled east into the dry country, mingled with ignorant self-hating fanatics, and gone strange. Wraeththu had touched them, of course, but they'd fought hard against it, their numbers decimated by both failed althaia and their own hysterias. Yet a few made it through. These few pulled together their tattered psyches, gathered others, and devoted themselves to mastering the new thing they had become. In their search for truth, they remembered the past, and the city they had abandoned. They looked and saw us grown rich and strong, and wanted to come home. They didn't bother to ask, however. Which was a shame. We probably would have welcomed them, if they had.

Instead they tried to barge their way in, and got stalemate. They cut off our land-routes, but we were water-people; we had always depended on the river, not the roads, for our commerce. They sent warriors to raze our walls, but we protected ourselves with shields they could not break. They prayed to the Aghama for us to die, but I suppose they never realized the Aghama has better things to do. 

To be sure, there was more to the stalemate than this. I had heard rumors that they sought to make pearls every time they took aruna, believing aruna existed only to serve the Aghama's plan for the growth of Wraeththukind. Because of this, they had the advantage of numbers, having grown from the pathetic remnants of a people in their early years into a righteousness-obsessed horde. We, on the other hand, had the advantage of power. Even in human times, our ancestors had been different. Our beliefs sprang from an older source which was far more compatible with the way of Wraeththu than theirs. To us, the Aghama was Mawu-Lise, male and female twins bound into one body, and it was our highest honor to welcome his spirit into ourselves---him, and the spirits of the angels and the saints and all those who had died before us. We called our summoned spirits _loa_ ; this was our magic. The Hosannah called it demonic possession and declared it abomination. They had no magic of their own. We could have broken and scattered them easily, but they were more a nuisance than a threat, so we didn't bother.

And so they could only camp outside our borders and gaze in at us with hatred and envy, while we went on about our lives. 

The siege had existed for some thirty years by the time my pearl was brought forth. I grew up in war and hardly knew it. I was a son of the leader of the tribe Nibeaux, which ruled the western half of the inner river-bend from the levee to the southern swamp. My father, the Sarauniya, had many sons. I was the most beautiful of those past Feybraiha, however, and so it had been decreed that I would become the consort of tribe Oguin's new leader, the Forge of Mawu. The Oguin ruled the eastern half of the inner bend, and so it was logical that we should seek unity with them. We all knew that unity within the city was the key to true strength; the constant bickering between the city-tribes was holding us back as a people. We had heard tales of the Gelaming's Immanion, and we believed Noroliin had the potential to match that distant jewel. Ambition seemed to be the one common marker of a Noroliinean har, regardless of tribe. 

I was a true son of the city. It troubled me only a little that I would soon leave my family's ancient mansion amid the moss-draped oaks for a tower of glass somewhere in Oguin territory. I had always liked new experiences, and living in the sky appealed to me. I had met the Forge, and liked him well enough. He was a sleek beauty of a har, with skin like dark velvet and grace flowing along every line of his muscles. It was easy to see why his hara loved him; in time I probably would, too. In the meantime, however, I would certainly love the luxuries of his tower, and being pampered like a Tigrina. And I would gain power of my own, for the consort of the Forge would become one of the Shapers of the Revels---the highest mystical rite of the city. Not bad, I figured, for a fourth son by a second consort.

So on the eve of my blood-binding, I sat on a velvet bench in my salon, overlooking the azalea garden while a servant threaded my curls with tiny cylinders of amber and delicate strings of minute pearls. The cylinders were to signify my bond with the Forge; as part of the ceremony we would share blood, then seal our wrists in ornate gold cuffs that would be impossible to remove. As for the strings of pearls---well, as symbols went they were a bit obvious, but it was the thought that counted.

A knock at the door pulled me from my reverie, and when I called out permission, my father walked in. The Sarauniya was a tall and powerful har who made no visible concession to his female side; I had heard the Elders exclaiming in half-amused wonder that he had no humanish beard or body-hair. They never joked once they'd gotten to know him, however. I'd never met anyone who was more stereotypically feminine in temperament.

I stood to greet him as was proper and he beamed, striding over to me with a box in his hands. "Magnificent," he said, lifting a hand to touch the mostly-finished mass of my hair, then just under my kohled eyes. "Those damned Oguin can't complain about the quality of what they're getting once they take a good look at you."

I had not inherited much of my father's appearance, and this was both a good and a bad thing. It was good in that I had the slender, wiry grace of my hostling, and the soft black-auburn ringlets for which he had been famous. It was bad in that I was short and small-boned and the color of cheap chickory au lait. My size was the greater worry; my hostling had died delivering the pearl of one of my younger brothers, so I knew well that this could be my fate someday. My coloring was a more subtle flaw. In the days before the Hosannah's siege, I might have been considered unworthy of comment; now I was unpleasantly similar to our enemies.

"Their Forge likes me well enough," I replied, shrugging. "That's all that matters."

"Oh, you know better, my vain little pearl, but I'll accede to your wisdom in this. Your hostling had me wrapped around his little finger within days of our bonding; I suspect you'll do the same to the Forge once you've had a chance. Just be careful. Those Oguin are a hot-headed bunch."

"More than us?" I smiled at him archly, and he chuckled. 

"Brat. But I suppose you're right; you'll be fine. Now." He handed me the box. "A present for you. Something I should have given you a long time ago. Open it and put it on, while I go make sure everything's ready." He kissed me on the forehead and then left.

I opened the box to find a corset lying there---a corset of the palest and finest papyrus-cloth, woven in long strips bolstered by bones of steel. The servant smiled as I held it up to my chest, and I did too, moving to gaze at myself in the mirror. In ancient times, queens had worn such garments. There was a portrait of my hostling Jaera in our gallery, resplendent beside my father and my harling self. This had been his.

There were other things of his in the box---a set of delicate toe-rings, each attached to an anklet by slender golden chains. A spiraled arm-band in the shape of a python. And a simple but elegant golden torque, with a pendant of polished obsidian. 

My servant laughed. "The Oguin are going to think you're some kind of metal-smith---" But he fell silent, watching as I dressed, and his mirth faded very quickly. I saw why when I looked in the mirror.

As I turned, admiring the contrast of the tight pale corset against the loose burgundy pants I wore, I suffered an instant of deja vu so powerful that I suspect one of my loa was nearby. It was not I, little Enra, who stood there, but magnificent Jaera. For all that he'd been second, it was Jaera people most often meant when they spoke of the Sarauniya's consort. As the Sarauniya was our sword-arm, Jaera had been our focused will; his slight stature had hidden a tremendous power to summon and control the forces of aruna and the spirit-world, and his gentle smile had revealed a warmth and strength that few could rival. When Jaera died, the whole city---not just Nibeaux Tribe---mourned, for he had been a true adept.

And I? I had something of his beauty. My shoulders were broader and my pectorals---so nicely set off by the corset---more defined, but my face was his, right down to the bone structure. I had cultivated something of his regal bearing, and my skill in magic was growing. I lacked his confidence, however, and the aura of almost preternatural wisdom that had always cloaked him. That was to be expected; he had been an Elder, long ago throwing off the shackles of his Humanity, and I was spoiled, silly Enra, only nine years old and pampered to within an inch of my life. Perhaps one day I would truly be a worthy successor to Jaera, when I had raised sons to lead our people and attained new levels of occult skill. For now, however, I would have to make do as I was.

I spun away from the mirror, the hems of my loose pants swirling about my calves and the chains on my feet jingling sweetly. "Well? Still think the Oguin will wonder what they've gotten into, seeing me?"

"Yes," said my servant, his eyes very dark, his face very still. "They will wonder."

His reaction, though a humbling precursor of what would soon come, was also immensely satisfying, and it let me know that my preparations were complete. I reached up to tie off the dangling ends of the strings of pearls, and nodded to him. "Please inform my father that I'm ready." He bowed and went to do so.

The warriors were gathered in the atrium as I came down the spiraled stairway, and their reactions mirrored my servant's. These were hara I'd known all my life, and yet they stopped to gape at me. I hadn't received such adulation even at my Feybraiha, and for a moment it made me giddy. Then Chancel---Father's concille, and the har who'd been my first initiation into the mysteries of aruna---came forward to take my hand, at the last stair.

"The Forge is luckier than he knows," he said quietly, and I struggled not to blush, damning my coloring once again. He grinned, seeing my discomfiture and enjoying it, the wretch.

"I assume the ship is ready?" It was the only thing I could manage without stammering. His smile widened.

"Oh, it is. We were just waiting for the Sarauniya's word---and you."

And my father's word was a deeply gratifying wordlessness, when he came forward to take my hands. "I have always known the best of Jaera was in you," he said at last, his voice heavy with emotion. "I should have given you those things at your Feybraiha. Mawu-Lise likes to see his favorite children displayed properly."

I managed a smile. Very soon, now, I would leave him, and this house in which I'd grown up, forever. I would see him again, of course---at tribal gatherings and the like, and I'd be free to come home whenever I wished as long as the intertribal treaties stood. But this would no longer be my home... and now, more than at my Feybraiha, I realized that I would no longer be my father's little harling. It was time to make my own way in the world.

"It's just as well you've only given them to me now, Father. Here I can be Enra; to the Oguin it's best that I'm thought of first as Jaera's child."

He grimaced a little, then turned to walk with me, making me hook my hand through his arm. We walked out of the house and down the wide steps, toward the crystal-powered limosine that would take us to the levee. "You've grown shrewd, little one. Be careful, though, about showing that side of yourself. The Forge expects a pretty trophy, and you'll certainly be that, but if you let him know the full extent of your talents too soon he may view you as competition..." He stopped, then---we had reached the car---and sighed. "I don't want to speak of politics, Enra. Not now."

I turned to him and took his hands, while the chauffer opened the door behind me and our guards took their places. We had spoken at length the night before and made our true farewells then, so I smiled. "There's always the thought-transferrence unit, Father. And I already told you I'd try to come back for the winter festival."

He smiled, half-rueful and half-mischievous. "I'll have Kendra make pralines with chocolate and bourbon. Just the way you like them."

I forebore from pointing out that the Forge's staff could probably make pralines just as well, and kissed his cheeks. Then, before he could start weeping---he only _looked_ overly masculine---I slipped into the car.

We pulled off, and I resisted the urge to turn back as we drove down the house-road. I knew the sight by heart anyhow: a tunnel of gnarled oaks dangling moss, banked on either side by flowering hyacinths. Beyond it, the house, diminishing. If I turned now, I might still be able to make out the creek that ran behind it, where I'd played in the mud as a harling. If I opened the window, I might still smell the thick, syrupy sweetness of honeysuckle and blackberry flowers, blooming early on their vines.

I didn't look back. 

We drove to the docks and then boarded the riverboat that would take me to Oguin territory. It would be a short trip, but the riverboat was an ancient paddlewheeled type, beautiful and stately and slow as molasses. We had replaced the filthy old combustion engines with aruna-crystal drives, but other than that we'd kept it as it was, simply restoring and preserving its elegant furnishings and elaborate decoration. The human race had not been completely lacking in aesthetic sensibility; when they got it right, it meant less work for us.

I had ridden in the riverboat before, but only to accompany the Sarauniya on official trips to visit other tribes. Never before had I been important enough to warrant a ride by myself. It was quite a heady feeling to stand on the prow of that great vessel, breathing the thick mudwater smell of the river and feeling the great engines throb beneath my feet, and to know that it was all on my behalf. I might not be the great Jaera, but I was the pretty good Enra, and I felt certain that this trip would rank among one of the most profound experiences of my life. A foretaste of great things to come, I decided. 

I should have known. Mawu-Lise is a mischievous creature; he hears our thoughts, and sometimes it amuses him to grant our wishes whether we want him to or not. 

There was no warning. I heard only the faint hollow _shoop_ of whatever weapon they used, and the clatter of something impacting on the deck-boards behind me. And then thick, acrid smoke enveloped me, burning my eyes and my throat so terribly that I sank to my knees, coughing and squinting and wondering what in hell was happening. Through the smoke, I could hear a cacophony of chaos: my guard-hara running and shouting, the engines grinding to a halt, the rattle of some kind of motor and the rush of water as another vessel drew near. Then steps nearby. Hands grabbed me, and before I could muster enough wit to wonder whose hands they were, a cloth was pressed over my face. Something even more acrid than the burning smoke filled my nose and mouth, and then I was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

I came awake all at once to the sensation of my hair being pulled.

It wasn't being pulled hard, just slight tugs every few seconds. Hard enough to be noticeable but not painful, and followed by a faint click, as of something small being dropped onto a hard surface. For a moment the pleasurable dream I'd been having---of lying amid cushions in the Forge's glass tower, waiting for my newly-bonded consort to come set me on fire---merged with the sensation, and I wondered why the servants were plucking the gold and pearls from my hair. I wanted him to see them sparkle in the light of our communion. Then I remembered what had happened.

The logical thing would have been to feign sleep and listen to my surroundings, but I have never been logical. I opened my eyes and sat up so abruptly that I startled a gasp out of my tormentor (even though I was the one who should have gasped, because I left a bit of hair in his hands in the process). 

I was in a dark, enclosed place. The walls and ceiling were hung with a bizarre assortment of items, questionably decorative: hides, spears, old guns, drapes of beadwork and strips of gaudy cloth. The smell of smoke and more rancid aromas---rendered fat, sweat, animal musk---floated in the air. The fire that had created the smoke crackled nearby, girdled by a spit roasting some unidentifiable hunk of flesh.

I turned and found myself hindered by a profusion of animal-fur blankets, some of which were the source of the musk-stench. They were surprisingly soft and warm and the air beyond was cool, but I didn't care; I threw them off in half-panic, half-disgust. As I moved, the thing on which I lay creaked and swayed alarmingly; some sort of cot. A dark form beside me scuttled away. Some sort of har.

Harling, I realized, as I noticed that the dark form was smaller than it should have been. It was hard to see in the dim firelight, but I made out a pair of huge frightened eyes, a sweet face---and hair as straight and flat as a curtain. The color was impossible to determine in the light, but the texture told me everything I needed to know. Hosannah.

I spared no thought for how they'd managed to breach the shields to kidnap me. All that mattered was escape. I scrambled to my feet, kicking over a bowl beside the bed---containing most of my jewelry and hair-decorations---and discovering to my great irritation that I was naked. Mawu-Lise only knew what foul things they had planned for me!

The harling scuttled away, making a sound that might have been distress or possibly the beginnings of some attempt to communicate, but I had no interest in what it might say. I summoned my will and called to Sogbeau, the loa of thunder, and he manifested around me as crackling energy that brightened the tiny chamber in stark, flickering light.

"Where are my people?" I demanded, then called out with my thoughts as well as my voice. "Chancel! Leonai! Are you here? Call out to me!"

The harling gave a squawk and dove for an entryway I hadn't seen before. Some kind of curtain of leather. It was only then that I realized I was in a large, dome-shaped tent. There was grass under my feet, overlaid by rugs of hide. So it was true, then; they lived in the dirt like animals. Barbarians.

I started for the entrance, but before I could reach it the flap opened again and a tall har came in. This one, too, was plainly Hosannah; his hair hung limp and pallid to his shoulders, whiter than his skin. And his eyes were discernible, even in the flickering light, as a shockingly deep sapphire blue. Noroliinese occasionally had blue eyes---a legacy of our ancestors' days as slaves---but always pale; never that unnaturally vivid shade. I shuddered in revulsion and readied the lightnings about me, prepared to burn those eyes out if I had to, to get free. But before I could attack, the white-haired har spoke.

"Calm yourself, Enra of Noroliin," he said, his soft voice marred by a flat, drawling accent. "No one will harm you."

I was so startled that I almost lost control of the magic. I don't know why I was so surprised; I knew the Hosannah were Wraeththu, like us. But I'd heard so many bizarre tales about them, all my life, that it was hard to think of them as... well... people. Only people spoke. Only people had manners. Only people would capture an enemy, and leave that enemy alive and unharmed.

Only people would torture their own kind to death, I reminded myself harshly, and re-gathered my wits. "Why have you kidnapped me?" I demanded. "How do you know my name? Where are my guards, and the crew of my ship? Where am I?"

The har smiled. "Those are more questions than I can answer easily, but I don't answer questions well under threat of incineration. Will you quiet your witch-powers, and speak with me like a civilized being?" He affected a look of concern. "You _are_ civilized, aren't you? We tried so hard to capture a civilized one."

At this, I actually did lose control; Sogbeau sensed my sudden consternation and fled, probably laughing at me. That a Hosannah could be a person was a strange enough concept, but one I could reluctantly accept. That a Hosannah could have a sense of humor, however, put him dangerously within the realm of a _likeable_ person. I forced myself to remember what the Hosannah had done to the first Noroliinese who'd gone to parley with them back at the start of the siege, and sharply focused my mind on priorities.

The har looked around as the crackling light faded. "That's better. Now. We have much to discuss, so if you'll please make yourself decent...?"

He gestured toward the bed again and I turned, warily, to see a garment lying there. I had mistaken it for a blanket because it was so long and loose, but when I looked at the har again I realized that it was indeed clothing, for he wore something like it. His shirt and pants---cotton, as far as I could tell---had been dyed black, and over these he wore a black cloak that draped from a high, stiff collar all the way down to the ground.

_"Decent?"_ I stared at him, incredulous. "You call this sack decent?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Please. Your other clothing was... inappropriate. Provocative."

"It's supposed to be provocative. I was on my way to get bonded. I should be conceiving my first pearl right now, not standing in this reeking place."

His skin darkened suddenly in the firelight, and I realized that this was his blush. "I'm sorry," he said. "We'll return them when we send you home---" He ignored my start of astonishment. "---but for now, you must accept that our customs are very different. We reveal ourselves only in sacred places, and this is not such a place. I can have different robes brought, if you prefer. Is it just the color that's the problem?"

"Let me think. No. They'll be hot in the day-hours, they're extremely unfashionable, and _you've kidnapped me, you barbarian son of a Varr!"_

I could be as shrill as the most high-strung humans when I wanted, and by the grimace on his face I was succeeding admirably. I don't know why I had the urge to bait him when he was clearly trying to be pleasant, and when my life might depend on his good favor. I think it was because my bravado was all a sham; I was terrified nearly beyond the capacity for reason. Escape was foremost in my mind, but for the moment it seemed far more important to lash out at any scapegoats handy. Perhaps I hoped to goad him into dropping his pleasant facade, so that the Hosannah could reveal himself for what he truly was: a bloodthirsty fanatic, and surely my executioner. I knew how to deal with that.

But the white-haired har only sighed. "Are you hungry?"

I was, but damned if I would admit it. "Since we've acknowledged that this isn't a typical diplomatic visit, can we please dispense with the polite host act?"

"I'd rather not." He turned, stuck his head outside the tent, and spoke to someone beyond whom I couldn't see. Inwardly I cursed as half-formed notions of overpowering this bleached freak and escaping into the night shattered. Of course there would be guards. He pulled his head back in and then folded his hands. "Your people are fine, by the way. We took only you, and left them none the worse for the attack; a few might have bruises or reactions to the gas we used, but we took care to kill no one."

"How kind of you," I snapped, though I was relieved.

"We thought it best. As for what we want---" He paused as someone thrapped on the tent-flap and thrust in a parcel, which he took. "Ah. I doubt you'll like this any better, but here. This is party clothing, by our standards." 

As if he could sense the wire-tautness of my nerves, he made no attempt to approach me with the parcel, but instead he placed it on a table to one side of us and backed away. When I warily approached and opened the parcel, I found a stack of folded clothing. Pants, trousers, and cloak again---russet-brown this time. Oh, _much_ better.

Still, captives couldn't be choosers. I dressed, finding both pants and shirt to be too big for me. I didn't touch the boots; I had always been more comfortable in my bare feet except in winter or the rainy season, and it was currently neither. Plus I didn't trust myself to be able to run in such clunky footwear, when the opportunity presented itself.

I turned, putting my hands on my hips and tossing my head back. "Very well. Now tell me why you took me. You know my name, so I assume you were after me in particular. And tell me how you breached the city's shields. And tell me who the hell you are, because I'm getting tired of calling you 'barbarian.'"

He chuckled, straightening a bit; I hadn't realized until now that he'd avoided looking at me directly. Now he faced me head-on, alien blue eyes boring into my own. They were unthreatening, those eyes, but with a flutter of unease I noticed what I had not before---that there was power in them. This was no spirit-scattered Aralid, though I'd thought all Hosannah were no higher. I guessed that he might be Brynie, perhaps even first-level Ulani. 

If so, I realized with a chill, then I was facing something far more dangerous than just a bloodthirsty fanatic. This was a bloodthirsty fanatic who knew himself.

"In reverse order: my name is Gideon. We breached the city's shields at their weakest point---over the water, where some of your de--- your... loa..." He faltered over the word, which was obviously foreign to him, "...would not travel. The ones that would were dealt with easily enough." He smiled thinly, and my unease grew to full-fledged horror as I realized the implications of what he was saying. 

He _was_ Ulani---at least Pyralisit, which was my own level. Or... higher. Even I would have had trouble banishing some of the loa set to guard our borders; they had been summoned by our Nahir-Nuri. Which meant that the Hosannah had magic, true magic that could only have come from the Path. They had found a way that worked for them, at last. And it meant that Noroliin was completely vulnerable to a surprise attack, unless I could find a way to escape and warn them.

But his next words dispelled my panic, and left confusion in their place.

"As for why we took you---well, I think you've already guessed some of it. We want peace." He smiled again as I gaped at him; it was a gentle, patronizing little smile that almost made him look Noroliinese for a moment. "And you're the one who's going to help us get it."


	3. Chapter 3

I stared openmouthed at Gideon while he grinned at me, too-blue eyes twinkling. Another thrap at the tent-entrance drew his attention away; he stepped out again, and returned this time with a tray of food. It was this which finally jerked me out of my daze. I had fasted the day before to prepare for the bonding, and by now I was ravenous. 

He set the tray down on the table and then gestured toward it, gracefully. "Please." And then he sat down on one of the stools at the table to wait, gazing at me with a clear challenge in his smile. I would have to talk with him, if I wanted the food.

So be it. In spite of myself, I was curious. I approached the table warily, and sat on the opposite stool.

All at once I noticed the food, whose smell up close was less than alluring. There was a fillet of some sort; meat, which startled me. Red meat was a delicacy in Noroliin; we had to import it from the Parasiel. But sweet Mawu, what had they _done_ to it? It had been fried in flour; terrible waste of a good steak. And the vegetables---steamed, plain, with no herbs or seasoning. A slab of bread on the plate looked edible until I nibbled it, and then I was shocked by the gummy texture. Unleavened, apparently, and fried in a skillet to judge by the flecks of char.

"No wonder you want our city," I declared. "If I had to eat like this all the time, I would fight for better, too."

Gideon lifted an eyebrow, no doubt noticing that I laid into the food despite my complaints. It was fully as revolting as it appeared to be, but I ate anyhow, reminding myself that I could not flee if I didn't keep my strength up.

"We live simply, in this tribe. God frowns upon excessive sensuality."

"Sensuality? What's sensual about decent food?" I swallowed another thick mouthful and grimaced as it moved down my throat with obscene slowness.

His face went momentarily expressionless, but I was somewhat gratified to see anger lurking in his eyes at last. "I'm sorry. We haven't exactly had a great deal of time to devote to higher pursuits, out here in the wilderness. We'll be certain to improve our culinary arts, as soon as we've got food to waste."

I refused to let him make me feel guilty. "Maybe if you didn't make so many harlings, you'd have food to spare."

He folded his hands and examined them. "None of our harlings go hungry, in this tribe. None are sold to pleasure-houses when their parents can't afford to care for them. We may eat simply, here... but we all eat."

"Well, bully for you," I snapped, but I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Our way is the way your ancestors taught us. Survival of the fittest. Lead, follow, or get out of the way, and so on. In the old days my ancestors were the ones working in the pleasure-houses while yours ate the good food, so don't criticize us for learning those lessons too well."

He held up a hand. "Enough." He rubbed the bridge of his narrow nose for a moment, then took a deep breath. "There are flaws in both our societies, of course; there's light and darkness on every path. I didn't bring you here to argue sociology." He folded his hands again and regarded me for a silent moment, and I realized that he was nervous, despite his calm demeanor. I couldn't fathom why when I was the captive, but it eased my nerves somewhat to see it. 

Putting down my fork, I sat back and returned his gaze. "All right, then; peace. You want it? Go away. You're the ones who started this war. You can stop it very easily by leaving us alone, and returning to whatever backwater hatched you."

He flexed his fingers slowly, examining them. "We can't do that."

I threw up my arms. "Why am I not surprised?"

"My people and yours are intertwined. Our ancestors built that city together, though yours were our slaves and enemies. We tried to keep you weak through poverty and degradation, as you say, and then after we had exploited you for generations, we abandoned you to the old world's death-throes. We have tried to do penance for that."

"What? Camp outside our walls for forty years and kill anyone who comes out to talk to you? That's your penance?"

He lowered his eyes. "We were... misguided. Our leaders were trying to merge the old ways with the new. The old ways dictated that when a child of God saw another person doing wrong, it was God's will that the sinner be corrected. Forcefully, if necessary. If a whole people sinned, then they would all require correction. Holy war."

"Yes. The kind of oxymoronic thinking which justifiably wiped out the human race. Wraeththu are supposed to be better than that."

"Are we?" He leaned forward, dropping his cool act; I blinked in surprise at the earnest intensity in his face. "The Varrs decided that their way was the best way, and they destroyed or subjugated all other tribes to prove it. The Gelaming aren't much better; their subjugation is more gentle, more humane, but subjugation nevertheless. They impose their Path on every tribe they meet."

"Because their Path is the way of Wraeththu, not just the Gelaming," I replied. "It doesn't need to be travelled in the same manner; all tribes find their own way to it. It's simply the way our powers work."

"You accept this so readily, and yet your people believe your powers come from invisible creatures, and your dead ancestors---"

I scowled. "We do _not,_ you ignorant savage. 'Loa' is simply the name we give to the thought-forms of our power. Others conceptualize it as some sterile, abstract concept; we personify it. Our ancestors did the same thing, and yours thought mine were primitive fools for it---even though mine discovered some of the same scientific ideas yours didn't comprehend for millennia. Don't be as stupid as they were. Of course we're aware that the power really comes from us! Self-knowledge is the key to magic, after all. We understood that long before _you_ did."

"Exactly," he said, throwing me into confusion again. "Self-knowledge. The Elders of my tribe had none, when they became Wraeththu. Our beliefs had taught us to look outward for power, for strength. We expected God to provide us with the answers, and when he didn't, we again looked outside, for someone to blame. There was no one, except ourselves. So we spent decades after the fall of humanity, wandering. Losing our wealth and strength, going begging of every tribe that would give us a few crumbs and fleeing from those who would victimize us. Brooding on our own bitterness. Scorn us now if you like, but if you had seen us in the years before we came to the gates of your city, you would have truly thought us barbarians. We were a pack of starving wolves, ragged and rabid and as diseased as humankind. We hated ourselves, and it scourged our collective spirit."

He was looking at his hands, his expression tight with something that might have been pain, and I found myself somewhat taken aback. Slowly, I said, "And that was your penance?"

"Some of it." He calmed, and relaxed somewhat. "Fifty years ago we gained a new leader, however---one who told us there was a way to end the penance. If we could correct one of our ancestors' greatest sins, the balance would be restored, and we could go back to our place of favor in God's eyes. Our greatest sin, as we saw it, was your city; what we did to your people while we were there, and what we did in abandoning you. Because of our sin, that leader told us, your people had grown strong and wealthy, but your souls were languishing, unclean." He took a deep breath as I rolled my eyes. "You must understand. After so many decades without purpose, his words were like... like light, for us, shining in the darkness. We thought we had found the way. We wanted to share it with you. But when we came to you and you struck at us with demons, we---he---became convinced that we had left our sin to fester for too long. You had become, not just sinners, but enemies of God. The only way to bring light back to you was to force you to share our way."

I nodded, some of my anger returning. "Yes. I heard the tales of the envoys that were sent to you, when first you came. You put them to some barbaric test of witchcraft. _Tortured_ them, for days. Then you crucified them when they wouldn't recant the Path. It happened before I was born, but my people still hate you for it. I grew up knowing that the small evils around me were unavoidable; cure one and another would appear, for there must always be darkness if light is to exist. But I also grew up knowing that true evil existed in the world, and your people were it."

Gideon looked up at me and my anger faded a little, for there was terrible guilt and shame in his eyes. "Yes," he said. "We were. And in the aftermath of those murders, when your people put up the shield and we could do nothing but sit in your shadow and think, we realized what we had done. What _he_ had done. So our leader... killed himself. The easy way out, I suppose, but it was also a cleansing, which was necessary at that point. And his son decided to take on the burden of his sin, to try and find some expiation for it. As God had once done, he went out into the world and wandered alone. He did what we had never before done---lived among other tribes, and adopted their ways for a time. Tried to understand what made them whole, while his own people were still incomplete. Then he went out into the desert, and meditated upon his crimes and everything else he had learned. He begged God for an answer. And God finally gave it to him."

I narrowed my eyes at him, suspicious. "What was the answer?"

"That the Hosannah, as we are now, must die. That is our true penance. We aren't whole. What we thought was the light is incomplete, false. We thought we were progressing down the Path, but we were going backward." He reached across the table, then, and took my hand before I could jerk away; his eyes caught and held mine like magnets. "But we were right about one thing. Your people, too, are incomplete."

At this I drew back, skeptical, but could not pull my hand away; he gripped it too tightly. I was also a little alarmed by the firmness of his conviction. Was this the fanaticism I'd feared, given a new face? He had kidnapped me to make me listen to him. 

"We are not," I said. "We have Nahir-Nuri. Our Path works."

"It works, but it won't work well enough to get you where you really want to be. It might have, if the ancestors you speak of with such reverence hadn't mingled so thoroughly with mine and others', but as you said---you learned our worst ways, and you learned them too well. Now you need us, for balance." He smiled, suddenly. "Your fair city. You want it to be better, don't you? A Megalithican Immanion, shining to all the world. You'll never get there, as you are."

I stared at him, chilled and shaken and infuriated all at once. It was as if he'd read my mind---no. It was as if he'd read the collective mind of my people. This, more than anything else I had sensed from him, told me just how powerful he had become. I had a sudden vision of him meditating, sifting through the aether and hearing the faint whispers of our hopes riding on the wind. Had he laughed, to hear them, or been awed by our ambition? Or had he, as it now seemed, sent up a prayer to the Aghama and been told that our dreams were uncannily like their own...? The completion of their own...?

I pushed my stool back and got to my feet, trembling. "How dare you," I hissed. "You sit out here, living like animals, murdering those you envy, and you think you've found the answers to everyone's problems but your own. You say you want to help us find the way? Send me back! The bonding you interrupted by kidnapping me will bring my people more unity than they've ever known---"

"For a while." He kept his voice soft, as a counter to my rage. "And then the tribes on the other side of the river will unite to counter your new strength. The old tensions will flare, and grow. In time you might devolve into tribal war, like in the days of the changing. Only now, because you're all so powerful, it could mean the annihilation of every har in the city. Or perhaps a slower destruction---all of you turning on yourselves, feeding on each other. Instead of another Immanion, another Fulminir."

His invocation of the city of nightmares chilled me, but I was too angry to listen. "And you've forseen this, have you? Your God has given you the power to part the veils of the future, has he?"

He shook his head. "It's no more than anyone could guess. Your own people have guessed it, which is why you're trying so hard to forge this new unity. _You've_ guessed it, which is why you've agreed to bond yourself for life to someone who's not right for you. But it's not enough. Your people are still too petty, too caught up in yourselves, just as we are. You need a new way, new ideas. New blood. You need us."

I laughed, unsteadily. "We? Need you? If we truly needed you we'd have collapsed into nothing when you left us behind. Instead we grew, and thrived---"

"Yes. Because you're strong. You had to be, to survive all the things we did to you. But strength alone has never been the way. There is strength in submission, too, the strength of the soume---"

_"Don't you preach at me!"_ My hands were fists. The taste of blood was in my mouth. I wanted to strike him. I wanted to run to him and weep. I hated and feared him, but I hated and feared his words even more. "This is just some new tactic to try and get us to lower our defenses, so you can swarm over us and destroy us. You're still the same; you want our city and you want to make us your servants. Instead of shooting at us, now you proselytize. Well, your new face hasn't changed your basic nature. You've still _kidnapped me_ to make your point!"

"Your people would never have agreed to my proposal, otherwise."

"Of course not. Your proposal is 'Roll over and die, please.' You're all mad."

"We're not. If you'll let me, I'll show you."

I flinched at this sudden change of tack, a thousand panicky thoughts running through my mind. He was a fanatic. Mad, dangerous. Who could know what he meant? Visions of torture flickered across my vision. Visions of my city in flames followed.

He might have heard my thoughts, or perhaps he simply saw the fear in my face, because he stood as well, holding out his hands in a soothing gesture, as one might approach a skittish Fareldienne. "I promised I wouldn't hurt you. I only want to show you my people. What we've become now. A tour."

A tour. Some of my panic faded, replaced by shame. Jaera would never have behaved like this. However frightened he might have been, however unnerved, he would never have let it show, because he was Jaera. And I was Jaera's child.

"A tour." I mustered the tatters of my pride and straightened. "There's nothing you can show me, Hosannah, to make me forget what your people have done to mine, what you've done to me in stealing me away like this."

"I don't want you to forget," he said, stepping around the table. He came to me and took my hand again; I decided not to pull away. "I want you to forgive."

This threw me yet again. It was this har's gift, I decided, to perpetually fluster the people around him. I could have dismissed it as just another trick easily, if he hadn't seemed so... sincere.

"Your god and mine are the same in this, Hosannah," I told him sternly. "Forgiveness isn't mine to bestow, it's yours to find within yourself, if you can. Still..." I looked down at his hand on mine, shockingly pale by contrast. Was this how my own people saw me, when I touched them? The thought jarred my skepticism, and I made myself look up again, into his blue eyes. Perhaps they were not so unnatural. Perhaps they were only different.

"Still... maybe there's some merit in humoring you, for the time being. Show me whatever you think will change my mind, barba--- Gideon. I will reserve judgment until then."

He smiled as if he'd won a great victory, and led me out into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

We stood on a hill, overlooking an encampment that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a city: a city of round domed tents like mushrooms, filling the plain. What shocked me most was the _orderliness_ of it all. The tents were laid out in neat rows, creating a grid with natural streets and occasional empty squares. Every few tents, there was a fire, with hara gathered around. Along every few rows stood a line of smaller, oddly-shaped tents which I gathered were the latrines. In the empty squares stood racks of weapons, tools, and clothing, apparently laid out for communal use. Some tents were clearly specialized, smithies and the like. Gideon's tent was the only one on the hill.

"Perhaps you aren't animals, after all," I said. "Perhaps you're bees, to have such a neat little hive."

"A hundred and fifty years of nomadic wandering has taught us some hard lessons in camp design and social structure," Gideon replied with a smile. "But you don't care about that."

"I might. I'll report all of this back to the tribal leaders in the city, if I ever get back there."

"You'll go back." He squeezed my hand reassuringly, and for an instant I almost smiled at him for the unexpected comfort of the gesture. I restrained the urge, and felt my cheeks heat instead. "Come," he said, and I pulled out of my self-absorbed maundering to follow him down a stone-paved stairway.

He had been right. I didn't care about their strategic layout; if their army had been any threat to Noroliin, they wouldn't still be camped out here after twenty years. I paused once to look around, hoping for some sight of the city, but trees were in the way---and I got the feeling that the Hosannah encampment I could see was nothing to what I couldn't see. Their army might be parked right up against our shields, but if that army stretched on for miles...

I could be much further from home than I'd realized. And I had no inkling of how to find my way back through the forest, especially not when that forest was populated by Hosannah who'd lived here for two Wraeththu generations. My only way back, it was becoming more and more clear, was through the good graces of the Hosannah leader.

That particular mystery, however, I felt sure I had solved. "So which tribes did you visit, in your wanderings?" I asked, keeping my voice casual. "Ones your father would have approved of?" Gideon walked before me; I saw his shoulders stiffen for a moment, then relax. Of course he had to be the leader he'd spoken of, in his little tale.

"The Froia, the Parasiel, the Sulh, the Dinh, and the Macay," he replied, without inflection. "None of which my father would have approved, but..." He shrugged. "He was dead."

"Not the Gelaming?"

"No. As I said, theirs is not the only way. Local tribes tend to spring from the same cultural source; I believed Megalithican tribes' ways would be more compatible with our own than those of hara from across the sea."

I snorted, although I was surprised at his careful social engineering. Not for nothing, I guessed, had he succeeded his father as the Hosannah's leader. "If that were true, our peoples wouldn't be at war now."

He surprised me by glancing back over his shoulder and smiling. "We're more alike than you think. Come."

We reached the foot of the stair, and walked awhile about the Hosannah encampment.

I am a child of Jaera, the greatest adept Noroliin has ever known. The ways of magic came naturally to me, when I first began learning after Feybraiha; I shot from Ara to Acantha practically overnight. Self-knowledge is easy when you know your own potential, and with Jaera as an ideal, my potential is high indeed. Yet there comes a time, inevitably, when knowledge of self requires knowledge of others---knowledge of one's place among them. Knowledge of their closeness to or distance from the self. I expected, as I walked among them, to feel the Hosannah's distance. They were alien creatures, surely, to look so different and have such strange beliefs. My place would be above them, I believed, and they would see easily that I was more whole and more beautiful and more powerful. Surely whatever path they might have recently found could not erase a legacy of directionless wandering, both literal and spiritual. Surely there could be nothing in common between them, and me.

The Hosannah _were_ a strange people; there was no denying that. I might have been walking into the land of the dead, surrounded by guede---death spirits---every one of them garbed and cloaked all in black. I saw some of them gathered by a fire, around a musician who played an odd stringed instrument that made a sound like a caterwaul. Instead of dancing or singing they simply sat there, carefully motionless. I saw some of them---harlings approaching Feybraiha, I gathered---clad in still more voluminous robes that gave no hint of their shape or curves, with hideous bonnets covering their hair and veils shielding their faces. And of course, I saw a sea of faces with variations of Gideon's pallor and narrow features, all crowned by hair as lank as spiders' silk. At least, I thought with some rancor, I got to be the dark one, here.

I saw other things, however, which put the lie to my superior thoughts. Couples sharing food and breath, by a fire. Tiny harlings, perhaps only a year, running about chased by frazzled hostlings. Older harlings gathered about something and whispering to one another, trying to fathom the mystery of it---a sleeping dog, I saw when we drew near. One of them was pointing between its legs; I heard them murmur, wonderingly, _"She..."_ Near a smithy, a tall Elder explained the ways of metal to a younger har who clearly had eyes only for him and not the bar of pig-iron in his hands. As we passed a cooking area, one of the veiled harlings paused in setting down flat cakes of unleavened bread and stared at me. He darted a look around and then lifted his veil to smile at me, shy yet clearly fascinated. I looked away quickly, for he was beautiful and I knew better than to feed the hunger in his eyes.

They were all beautiful, I realized after a while. It was not simply physical beauty, although I was beginning to recognize some of that, now that I was getting used to their appearance. Rather, it was a serenity that I had never expected to see in them---a serenity that I'd only rarely glimpsed in Noroliin. There was no hardship, here, although the Hosannah lived in what my folk would call abject poverty. No permanent houses, that horrid food, a dearth of ornamentation or other aesthetic luxuries. But there were no beggars, either. No kanene, beckoning from the shadows between the tents. There were many, many harlings; far more for every adult than I'd ever seen in Noroliin. Some were dirty, some were ill-behaved, but all were healthy and strong. Growing. Happy.

My people were water-people, but ours was the water of the mighty, temperamental river that governed our lives, ebbing and surging and occasionally rampaging wildly. These Hosannah were fire-people, I felt instinctively, but theirs were steady-burning fires, despite the tumultuous flare of their origins. That flare had settled into a regular glow: the sort of fire which can sustain itself for hours, perhaps endlessly given the proper conditions. I hated to admit it, but I could see, now, the truth in Gideon's words. There was something here my people were missing. A quietness, for lack of a better word. A sense of peace. They made me think of the summer heat, which each year drives the flooding river back into its banks. They could tame us, channel us, inasmuch as we needed taming or channelling. And we, perhaps, could ignite their fire to grander and brighter heights.

Then my contemplations shifted as I passed something odd: another rounded tent, this one larger than the others and colored a bright red that stood out in sharp contrast from the brown and grey tents around it. The color was not the difference which drew my attention, however; the sense of power which radiated from it, was. I stopped and stared at it, and Gideon stopped as well, watching my face.

"One of our nayati," he said. "What we call a _tabernacle_. Would you like to come in?"

As if I would refuse. After everything I had seen, I was reluctantly prepared to accept that the Hosannah were no longer the half-mad fanatical monsters I'd thought they were. But the test of any tribe is its Path, and the power that comes with it. I needed to see the focal point of that power, if I was to seriously consider presenting Gideon's proposal to my people. Seeing my interest, he nodded and led me within.

I stepped into another world. Here, at last, the Hosannah fire made itself known blatantly; everything was in shades of red, mostly a deep vivid vermillion. My eyes were assaulted at once with a profusion of the color, filtered by an odd mist, and blatant sensuality: hangings of silk along the walls; thick furred carpets along the floor which tickled my bare feet; piles of cushions and oddly-shaped couches so plush that they seemed almost obscene after the austerity of outside. The hara, too, abruptly seemed obscene; there were several within, walking about naked or nearly-naked. Now I understood how my Norolinese attire must have shocked them; after seeing so many of them in stark black, the sudden paleness of their bare skin was almost a titillation in itself. Many of them had odd designs tattooed here and there on their bodies, in bold black lines that emphasized their pallor. 

To my surprise I saw that one of them, whom I'd thought was praying, was actually bent over another har, whose face was buried in his lap. He murmured an encouragement and then threw his head back, sighing silvery colors into the air. All around me hara were locked in embraces; three of them moved in a unified rhythm over in a shadowed area off to the side, and a pair on one of the couches writhed against one another in a position I had never seen before. The mist, I understood suddenly, was not smoke or incense as I'd first assumed, but the released and scattered energies of dozens of hara. Their magic had not dissipated, but simply hovered about the enclosed tent, interacting with the worshippers and no doubt enhancing their pleasure further.

And there was no doubt that these were worshippers. I glimpsed faces, turned up in two kinds of ecstasy, crying out their god's name in passion but with no trace of blasphemy. With so many essences collected and mingled in this one place, I could feel around me a collective presence, far greater than those of the individual spirits which usually manifested during aruna. It was as if an unseen Aghama lurked here, riding the currents of power. Their moans and cries were prayers, and that presence answered them: for every particle of power they threw out, it returned to them threefold, more intense than before.

I had always wondered how a tribe of Aralids could manage to produce so many children; here was my answer. In here, even a _human_ could have achieved a higher state of consciousness, at least for that critical instant. I turned to Gideon to share my realization with him, and froze.

Gideon had thrown off his stifling robes and clothing; they lay beside others, in a pile I had not noticed on the way in. Underneath, he wore only a breechclout---but this was not what so stunned me. It was the tattoos which held my eyes: on every inch of his visible flesh below the neck and above the hands, in stylized designs whose meaning I could not fathom. Norolinese occasionally tattooed themselves; generally small, ornamental designs. (I had a purple orchid high on my inner thigh.) Gideon's were bold, vivid chevrons and patterns, far more elaborate than any worn by his fellow Hosannah. Against his pale skin they were as exotic and striking as the most flamboyant Norolinese attire.

And that was only part of it. He had a magnificent body, now that I could actually see it. Perhaps it was the tattoos, but somehow he seemed less alien, in here; his paleness no longer shocked me, although I noticed with great fascination that his nipples were a startling pink. I found myself wondering what his colors were like beneath the breechclout, and sternly brought my libido to heel.

He was amused by my stare. "In here, sensuality is appropriate. You may disrobe, if you wish."

I wanted to. It was more than just distaste for the clothing; it was the aura of the place, which I am ashamed to say was affecting me rather intensely. And, of course, my abrupt awareness that he and I were the only two hara in the room not attached to anyone else didn't help. I tried not to let him see my discomfort. "I'm promised to the Forge. I'm not entirely certain it _is_ appropriate for me to undress, here."

He chuckled, but there was something in the steadiness of his gaze, the tension of his body, which warned me of his real thoughts. "Undressing in and of itself does no harm. As for what you do, once you're undressed..." He shrugged. "There is no pelki, here."

As there was in Noroliin, he did not say, and I realized that I was being foolish. Clearly the Hosannah customs placed an undue emphasis on nudity as a precursor to sexuality; a human remnant that my people had discarded ages ago. I sniffed a little and stripped off the irritating robes, then the pants and shirt, and stood as unabashedly nude as I had in Gideon's tent.

Now, however, he looked at me, long and appraisingly. I felt myself blush. "You've been depriving yourself of aruna," he said, raising eyebrows. "For some time."

"In preparation for the bonding," I muttered.

"And you've been deprived specifically of soume-aruna for longer than that. Yet you lean soume, I see---"

"To make conception more likely on the first try." I wrapped my arms about myself, shifting from foot to foot. "If this is a seduction attempt, it's extremely inept."

He grinned, pleased for some perverse reason. "It's not precisely a seduction attempt---or at least, not _just_ a seduction attempt. My people don't take aruna lightly, you see. We believe that communion between hara should be sanctified in the eyes of God. If not through blood-bonding, then it must be performed in the place of God---this place. Which makes any aruna shared here, holy. I would not profane such a sacred rite by tempting you into meaningless aruna."

He put just the slightest emphasis on "meaningless," and I narrowed eyes at him. "Out with it."

He smiled, lopsidedly, and took my hand to lead me toward a pile of cushions; I went along mostly out of curiosity. "You must have guessed, already. We want peace, and we want unity. The easiest way to begin is to forge an alliance with one of the city's tribes."

I stopped. "With me!"

He stopped as well, still smiling, still holding my hand. "If you're amenable."

"I'm pledged to the Forge, damn you! If I break that agreement---"

"You don't really want him anyway. And if you break that agreement in order to ally yourself to a tribe big and strong enough to eat the Oguin for breakfast, your tribe will become the most powerful in the city."

"And I'll be looked on as a traitor."

"Only at first. Only until they realize that we have our own Nahir-Nuri, and we're fully capable of bringing down their shields and _taking_ the city, at last. Your people are still more experienced in magic, so you'll likely beat us back---but not without a great deal of bloodshed and destruction on both sides." His hand tightened on mine, drawing me closer, and I found myself captured once again, this time by his eyes, which blazed blue. "Bond yourself to me," he said, his voice low and persuasive, "and you end the war between our peoples. You prevent a far bloodier war which could last another forty years. You set your beautiful city on the path---the _true_ path---toward its dreams."

I stared at him, my thoughts a miasma of confusion. My father had worked for over a year to secure the alliance with Oguin. To even consider this was a betrayal of my whole tribe. Not to mention a betrayal of Noroliin. Not to mention---he was Hosannah! Sweet Ayao of the Air, what was I thinking?

And yet.

He was right. If he wasn't lying about their Nahir-Nuri---and in this atmosphere it would be damned hard to lie without echoes of the falsehood radiating in every direction---then they _were_ the most powerful tribe in miles. Noroliin hadn't known true war since the changing, and that had been meager human war. My people were unprepared for a surprise attack now, and at the rate the Hosannah were gaining strength, they might soon be too much for us to handle even with advance warning.

And he was right about something else, as well.

I didn't want the Forge. I'd met him, and though he was easy enough on the eyes, I'd felt none of the pull that I'd always hoped to feel for the har who eventually became my bonded one. The Forge had some ambition, some vision, some strength, but nothing like mine. I had never been chesna with anyone before. As the son of a high-ranking tribe leader I had never expected to; bonding for duty was just one of the prices I paid for the privileged treatment. But that didn't mean I didn't want it. 

And this Hosannah. This bleach-haired pasty-skinned barbarian, whose idea of a courtship was kidnapping and whose seduction had all the finesse of a brick to the head... whose visionary leadership was transforming his army of rabble into something wholesome and dangerous... who knew my dreams, and shared them... this Gideon might, just _might_ , be a worthy match for me.

As if he'd heard my thought (and for all I knew, he had), he tugged me closer still, slipping one arm around me to press against the small of my back. Up close, I caught the scent of him, like roses and wine, underlaid by a spiciness that made my knees turn to water. It had really been too long. I wanted him so powerfully that my insides ached.

I lifted a hand, slowly, to touch his strange hair. It was not unpleasant to the touch. Thin, but silky, sort of. The pale color went all the way to the roots; it was natural. He raised an eyebrow.

"Our harlings will be _distinctive,_ at least," I said at last, with a sigh. "I can't speak for their beauty, with such a mishmash of genes to choose from."

"They'll be beautiful," he said firmly, and his delighted smile reinforced his words. Then he guided me down into the cushions and very thoroughly reinforced them again.

Even then, I could have changed my mind. At the height of our communion, as we strained against one another, I felt him move inside me, tickling, coaxing admittance to my innermost self. I could have refused; it was a request and not a demand. He _could_ have demanded, I knew in that moment, for I'd been right about his caste. He was Nahir-Nuri. But he left me the choice. A barbarian indeed.

The logical thing would have been to hold off, wait until I could get to know him, and make my decision then. But as I said before, I have never been logical. 

So I opened myself to him right then and there, as the sparks exploded around us and every har in the tent cried out at the same time, dragged into orgasm along with us. Afterward as we rested, I used the energy we'd expended to send a long-distance message to my father, who was frantic with worry. I assured him that I was well, and that I'd be coming home soon with important news. I didn't mention my important new consort, or the important new child we'd just conceived, or the important future that we had just solidified. There would be time for those particular explosions later. For the time being I was far more interested in explosions of a different nature, so as soon as I'd cut off the communication with my father I prodded Gideon awake and made him service me again. The third time I took him, which was delightful; he had not been soume often, and I think he enjoyed it rather more than he'd expected to. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth exercises he began to complain about hungry little city-hara, and I retorted that big strong country-hara ought to have more than enough stamina to satisfy me, and we laughed and I drew him to me and in the afterglow I decided that I'd made the right decision after all.

***

The rest of it did not go anywhere near as smoothly, of course. The Inter-Tribe City Council all but declared me anathema as soon as I returned until, as Gideon had predicted, the Hosannah demonstrated their new powers by bringing our shields down and then restoring them. Afterward I was roundly praised for nobly sacrificing myself to tame the barbarian horde. The Oguin made terrible noises about inter-tribal war, which quieted quickly once a few regiments of Hosannah marched through Riverwalk Square, each led by a (somewhat bemused) Nibeaux warrior. 

My father didn't speak to me for weeks, until I went into labor and he finally came out of his sulk to nurse me through the worst of the agony. He also didn't accept Gideon's presence in the house for some time---until Gideon saved my life when the pearl proved too big for me. It was a lucky thing that his people had a great deal of practice with pearls and hosting. 

And as the volatile summer finally cooled into a calmer autumn, the shell of the pearl cracked to reveal a child of uncommon beauty, with my brown skin and Gideon's blue eyes and sable hair that fell in soft loose waves. His birth triggered a sudden run on Hosannah mates in the city, among those Norolinese hara planning children---because at least, I heard a few say, the harlings looked better than the barbarians themselves.

When things quieted, I applied myself to my studies and rapidly rose to Nahir-Nuri. (I have always been competitive.) I learned something of the Hosannah's magic. It was strange stuff, all repression and release, but it wasn't entirely useless, and it seemed to have a strengthening effect on Norolinese magic. Gideon overcame his reticence and made an effort to learn our style of magic, and together we learned to raise unbelievable power. I have heard Nibeaux whispering that I may be a greater adept than even Jaera was. 

So we come to the end of the beginning. Seven years have passed. My beautiful city is changing again, but this time it is the glow of progress which suffuses its streets and alleyways. A collective caste ascension. We are changing, maturing, and everyone feels it a little, though the burden of the change has fallen on the Hosannah as they adapt to city life. The harling-houses have closed; the Hosannah will not tolerate harm to children, and they have adopted all the houses' poor victims. The musendas remain open, however, with a renewed trade as the Hosannah begin to shed their repressed natures and guiltily slink in for (gasp) casual, anonymous, areligious pleasure. The tabernacles have grown more popular too, as smitten Norolinese are dragged in for bonding ceremonies by more prim Hosannah. There is talk of combining the musendas with the tabernacles, to kill two birds with one stone. The Hosannah are nearly beside themselves with affront at the very notion. 

We'll probably keep pushing the idea, just for that.

***

It is nighttime, now. The heat fades and the city wakes. The air is thick with scent: good food and manure, flowers and mud, humidity and aruna-essence. Behind me Gideon stirs in our bed, but only a little. We have decided that he will host our pearls from now on, since he is so conveniently large, and so he sleeps through the witching hour, trusting me to guard him from harm. My loa hover around us protectively, whispering to the developing spirit of our second child. I close my book and listen, for a while, to the sound of the barges on the river blowing their mournful horns. I remember my last ride on the river, and smile.

Beware, Immanion. There is another star on the horizon, rising rapidly to challenge your eastern light. We have no Tigron to add to our prestige, no meddling Thiede to straighten our crescent-laid streets, but we need neither. We have found our other half, you see, the half we lost so long ago and did not know we missed until we found it again. And one day, we will be great.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this aaaaaaages ago, before Constantine's trilogy became a quadrilogy et al, and before Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans. At the time I wrote it to address something that had always frustrated me about the series -- its utter lack, AFAICT, of people of color given that "Megalithica" is supposed to be North America. Also because New Orleans is awesome. Also because Wraeththu-warped evangelicals vs Wraeththu-warped Catholics and Vodoun just sounded like the best cage match evar.
> 
> It was posted on the Wraeththu ML back in the day, so if it seems familiar, congratulations! You've got a great memory.


End file.
